Grateful For Me — sara lynn lashbrook

It is interesting living in this body. For so long I was detached from it, feeling separate from it. This place in which I live, I reside felt foreign, distant. I did not have a connection with my body. I did not pay attention to its messages, its signals, its offerings. And when I did, I often felt annoyed or irritated that it, in some way, was impeding or blocking me from enjoying or doing the things I felt I had to do, so I would push through. I would ignore my body. I would tell my body I knew better than it. We became foes. We were against each other, working against each other. There was discontent and separation rather than togetherness, in harmony.

At least that is how it used to be.

When I look back, I can see how I have been offered opportunities to be more in tune, to be more receptive of my body and how it feels. Slowly and steadily, with and in time, I have begun to listen to my body. Rest when it wants to rest, move when it wants to move. Rather than going through the motions, feeling I should and need to do whatever or eat at a certain time, I have been giving myself permission to do what my body is telling me to do.

This has been work, because there are ways that folks operate and interact, there are systems that are in place, ideas that are agreed upon about the way we carry ourselves, what we do and when and they are engrained in the fabric of our lives.

As I was laying in bed last night, I found myself thinking about how we are told things. Folks tell us things, research tells us things, doctors and nurses, people that are ‘more educated’ and ‘more well versed’ about diet, bodies, ways of being and living give us recommendations and suggestions about what is best for us and how we should carry ourselves.

This paired with my own experiences has me pondering. Where do I fit into this? Where is my inner voice, my inner knowing, where is the space for the intelligence that is me? Back in the day, before I knew more about myself, I would follow these recommendations, so much so that is would cause turmoil in my body, I would hold someone else’s recommendation or way of living over mine and this would cause an inner battle.

As I read through my journals in preparation for publishing Living In Her Wisdom, I find words that I have written asking how a doctor knows, how does a doctor know what is best for me and my body. And it is not just a doctor, how does anyone outside of me know what is best for me?

I hear this all of the time, these things that we need to do, ought to do, should do. What I find is that I know what is best for my body, because I am the one who is living in this body. I am the one who feels how it responds and changes, how it shifts and adapts. I am the one who listens to the subtle messages that are offered.

This is a huge shift in the way I used to live. For so long I though my body was for someone else. That someone else knew more or a better way for me to be. I thought my body was for someone else’s pleasure, not mine. I felt I had to hide and cover up my body for fear of what other people would have to say or what comments they would make about it. Somehow, somewhere along the way I picked up the story that me being me was not okay. That this body, which has been given to me is bad, wrong, a mistake and even dirty at times. This is the story that I picked up and this is the narrative that I have been carrying around as my truth for so long.

Until the other day, and then, just like that clarity came. The clarity of awe and beauty, the clarity of my power and strength. The power of a woman’s body, the power of my body. To be in tune, to be in harmony, to be one with nature. For the signals and messages that my body offers me in alignment with the cycles of the moon with the greater cosmos. This intuitive nature, this inherent nature that is within me, that is outside of me, that is me. That is in harmony, that is one, that is united with nature. Not separate from it. Not apart from it. The body knows. There are internal systems, systems upon systems, that are within me that enable me to be me. And for so long I was against this intelligence, I either ignored it or did not know about it. I was not taught about my own power and strength. I was not taught about my own beauty and capacities.

I could be angry about this. I could be mad. I could be annoyed or irritated. I am grateful. I am in awe. Because now I see and I have come to this awareness, this understanding, this knowledge on my own. Not because someone told me, no, because I have experienced it.

And this is one of the many gifts of this life. That now, at 46, I appreciate and am in awe with my body. I love my body for all that it is, for all that it does. For what it looks like, how it moves, how it carries me, what it offers me. All of these things that folks could have told me, but haven’t or maybe they have and I have not been able or ready to hear, to receive their messages, I now know. And it is not a knowing because I read about it, it is a knowing from experience, I feel it. I live it. It is a part of me.

I woke with the lyrics from Katy Perry’s Part of Me, from her 2012 album Teenage Dream: The Complete Confection

This is the part of me
That you're never gonna ever take away from me, no
This is the part of me
That you're never gonna ever take away from me, no

It’s so true, once I know this about myself, once I truly know this, it cannot be taken away. It is a part of me, this knowing from experience is embedded within me, activated within me. Now known.

And I am in awe.

I think about all of the times that folks try to project what they think is the right way or the best way, there fixed positions and stances, their values and beliefs and how they put them on other people with their words, actions and behaviors. Folks shape and guide, mold and create others in the way they want them to be. One of the greatest teachings I have accessed through the Yog-Vedantas has been the gift of allowing every individual to be on their own path, to find their own way. For others to not feel the need to take responsibility for another. I am seeing this all around me right now. Many of us do not even know ourselves, we are guided and shaped by what we hear, take in and consume. We are so fearful of others who have a different way than we do, since their way is foreign or unknown, we shun them, think that they are bad or wrong, or worth less than us. This is deeply imbedded in the way many of us are living now, this place of fear of another, this place that has us seeking control of our lives and the lives of others.

Which has me pondering about life in general. Its purpose. Why am I here? What am I doing? And this has me pondering about learning, what is really means to learn. A few weeks back I read something in one of my journals that got me smiling. Nearly nine years later I am faced, being presented an opportunity to see something again, with my eyes of now and I am reminded of the cyclical aspect of nature. How everything comes back around. Never the same way. Something is slightly different. Of course, the time is different, maybe the people are or the environment are different, but at the core it is the same lesson. Dressed up and presented in a new way, yet underneath all of that the same as before.

I think these are the life lessons we are here to learn. To move through, undo, engage with, see, meet. This, I am seeing are the karmic patterns playing out, the threads that are woven, the themes that are apparent in our lives, in all of our lives if we create the space and time to sit and be with them, to allow ourselves the ability to see them. We can often see patterns and trends of others; I have found it is more work to see them within my own ways of being. And I know that there is some guiding force, some larger intelligence that is at play, at work to bring all of these opportunities for me to see and be, for me to learn and grow, for me to shift and change. And I know from experience, when I want the lesson to be over, when I want to move on or have something be in the past or behind me, I am humbled knowing that everything happens in its time. Everything happens in its own time. Not my time. No matter how much I try to shift and control, manipulate and create.

Everything happens in its own time.

I am enjoying this cycle, this opportunity to see, learn and grow is here now. And while I am uncomfortable and uneasy at times, I know that this too will end and newness and more growth will be presented in its time. For this is how it goes, on and on and on like this.

I am grateful to be here, experiencing this now.

And so it is.

With a warm embrace,